The Accuracy of Age Reporting Among Elderly African Americans: Evidence of a Birth Registration Effect

This paper expands on previous research that has documented relatively high levels of inconsistency in age information for elderly African Americans. Drawing on a sample of death certificates for Maryland-born African Americans purportedly aged 65-79 at death in 1985, the validity of age data in both death certificates and social security records is examined by linkage to a birth record. The commonly assumed relationship between availability of birth registration and quality of age reporting also is investigated. Among matches to a birth record, age on social security records is significantly more accurate than on death records. Age agreement between matched death and social security records closely reflects age validity as determined from birth records. Findings based on logistic regression analysis support the hypothesized birth registration effect: controlling for demographic characteristics, persons with a birth certificate exhibited greater age agreement on linked death certificates and social security records (odds ratio = 2.3).

Age-Linked Institutions and Age Reporting Among Older African Americans

With economic and technological development, numerical age became an important dimension of social differentiation in the United States. The vast majority of Americans now have the ability to report their own age and the ages of relatives with accuracy. Nevertheless, studies have found that age misreporting remains substantial for older African Americans. This paper describes levels of age misreporting and investigates the determinants of age reporting accuracy on the death certificates of a national sample of native-born African Americans aged 65+. Consistent with previous studies, levels of age misreporting are found to be high. When checked against childhood census records, only 53% of the death certificate ages are found to be correctly reported; slightly over 10% are misstated by five years or more. Multivariate results provide compelling evidence that the quality of age reporting critically depends on interaction with age-linked institutions

Consistency of Age Reporting on Death Certificates and Social Security Administration Records Among Elderly African-American Decedents

This paper investigates the quality of age reporting in vital statistics and Social Security/Medicare data among elderly African-Americans. The authors examine whether the death certificate or Social Security age is more likely to reflect accurately the decedents\u27 true age at death by matching their sample to the US Censuses of 1900, 1910 and 1920, and identify factors associated with consistency of age reporting on death certificates and social security records. The results reveal significant discrepancies in age at death data. Birth record availability and literacy were identified as key predictors of age agreement. The match to an early-life census record showed greater agreement with Social Security age than with death certificate age at death. The results have implications for the collection of age information in surveys of elderly African-Americans

Impact of intercensal population projections and error of closure on breast cancer surveillance: examples from 10 California counties

INTRODUCTION: In 2001, data from the California Cancer Registry suggested that breast cancer incidence rates among non-Hispanic white (nHW) women in Marin County, California, had increased almost 60% between 1991 and 1999. This analysis examines the extent to which these and other breast cancer incidence trends could have been impacted by bias in intercensal population projections. METHOD: We obtained population projections for the year 2000 projected from the 1990 census from the California Department of Finance (DOF) and population counts from the 2000 US Census for nHW women living in 10 California counties and quantified age-specific differences in counts. We also computed age-adjusted incidence rates of invasive breast cancer in order to examine and quantify the impact of differences between the population data sources. RESULTS: Differences between year 2000 DOF projections and year 2000 census counts varied by county and age and ranged from underestimates of 60% to overestimates of 64%. For Marin County, the DOF underestimated the number of nHW women aged 45 to 64 years by 32% compared to the 2000 US census. This difference produced a significant 22% discrepancy between breast cancer incidence rates calculated using the two population data sources. In Los Angeles and Santa Clara counties, DOF-based incidence rates were significantly lower than rates based on census data. Rates did not differ significantly by population data source in the remaining seven counties examined. CONCLUSION: Although year 2000 population estimates from the DOF did not differ markedly from census counts at the state or county levels, greater discrepancies were observed for race-stratified, age-specific groups within counties. Because breast cancer incidence rates must be calculated with age-specific data, differences between population data sources at the age-race level may lead to mis-estimation of breast cancer incidence rates in county populations affected by these differences, as was observed in Marin County. Although intercensal rates based on population projections are important for timely breast cancer surveillance, these rates are prone to bias due to the error of closure between population projections and decennial census population counts. Intercensal rates should be interpreted with this potential bias in mind

Age-standardized incidence and mortality rates of oral and pharyngeal cancer in Puerto Rico and among Non-Hispanics Whites, Non-Hispanic Blacks, and Hispanics in the USA

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In the American region, Puerto Rico (PR) has the highest incidence of oral and pharyngeal cancer (OPC), but racial/ethnic differences have never been assessed and compared with other groups in the United States of America (USA). We compared the age-adjusted incidence and mortality rates of OPC between PR and among USA Hispanics (USH), Non-Hispanic Whites (NHW), and Non-Hispanic Blacks (NHB) to assess the burden of this cancer in PR.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Analysis of the age-standardized rates (per 100,000) was performed using the direct method with the world standard population (ASR(World)) from 1998–2002. Annual percent change (APC) and Relative Risks (RR) were calculated using the Poisson regression model.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The incidence ASR(World) for men in PR was constant (APC ≈ 0.0%), in contrast, a decrease was observed among NHW, NHB, and USH men, although only USH showed statistical significance (APC = -4.9%, p < 0.05). In women, the highest increase in incidence (APC = 5.3%) and the lowest decrease in mortality (APC = -1.4%) was observed in PR. The ratio of the ASR(World) showed that in all racial/ethnic groups, men had approximately 2–4 fold increased incidence and mortality risk of OPC than women (p < 0.05). Men in PR had a higher mortality risk (p < 0.05) of OPC as compared to USH, NHW, and NHB; but among women, PR showed a significant excess of mortality only as compared to USH (est. SRR = 1.82, 95% CI = 1.41, 2.33).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The overall higher incidence of OPC in men in PR as compared to USH, NHB, and NHW could be explained by the effect of gene-environment interactions. Meanwhile, the higher mortality from OPC in PR suggests limitations in the health-care access within this population. Further research is warranted to elucidate these findings.</p